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I can't believe I'm blogging about Indian food again. Actually, I don't even know why I had Indian food tonight. It wasn't just me. All of my friends where suddenly craving Indian food. Could this be an unknown side effect of inhaling petrol fumes?

Wait a second...:

Tour Auto Optic 2000 arrival in Luxembourg + rush hour + police forcing regular drivers to let the rally cars through = enormous traffic jam. Chaotic traffic -> traffic like in India -> Indian food!

Makes sense to me.

In case you're wondering if you've missed anything by not going to the Glacis Field to watch the arrival of the Tour Optic2000: I don't think so. The only place where you could get close to the cars was at the entrance, elsewhere the view looked more like this:

Here's the most interesting vehicle:

You could still watch the departure Friday morning at 6:30h.

Luxembourg's prime minister was visibly unhappy during the state of the nation speech this afternoon when two Greenpeace members walked up besides him and unfolded banners demanding a "Green New Deal now". According to wort.lu, he addressed the parliament's president and asked if "something like this could also happen in London, Brussels or Paris? I don't think so!" It's interesting he didn't mention Strasbourg.

So what's this "Green New Deal" about? I had a look at Greenpeace Luxembourg's website, but it doesn't mention anything on the front page or under "Actualités"*. The last entry on their blog dates back to April 2nd. Could something like this happen anywhere else? I don't think so!

Using the search function, I finally found this site which is all about climate change and raises the valid question of whether or not Luxembourg - as one of the richest nations - is doing enough. I'll get back to this topic another day.

*Update April 22nd: Their website has now been updated.

Dear Restaurant Les Thermes, here's how normal spammers do it:

1. Build a website.
2. Get visitors by sending them unsolicited emails.

This is bad enough, but if you switch steps 1 and 2 it doesn't make much sense anymore. Seriously, what were you thinking? "Nouveau site bientôt en ligne"?

Instead of sending your "Plat du Jour Brasserie" for the week by email to people who never subscribed for it (and to an address meant for pre-sales inquiries), why don't you post it on your website? Imagine if every restaurant in Luxembourg sent you its "plat du jour"! Do you want to receive 300 emails from Chinese restaurants alone (this is a rhetorical question, not a threat)? Or is it that you are somehow better than other restaurants and therefore entitled to do this? If that's the case, wouldn't it be more intelligent to show just how much better you are by setting up a really convincing website?

BTW, not having a website also means that this post is likely to appear among the top search results for "Restaurant Les Thermes".

Am 6. April hat Hosteurope seinen neuen Markenauftritt vorgestellt, jetzt endlich habe ich herausgefunden, warum mir das Design irgendwie bekannt vorkam:

Das ist allerdings nicht nur ein Barcode bei Hosteurope, sondern ein "Digital Pulse",

der die enge und interaktive Verbindung zwischen Host Europe und seinen Kunden widerspiegelt. Überdies dokumentiert er den Anspruch des Unternehmens, gestaltender Impulsgeber für das digitale Zeitalter zu sein.

Ok...

An dieser Stelle sollte ich noch erwähnen, dass ich als Kunde mit HostEurope sehr zufrieden bin: Einerseits ist HostEurope groß genug, um professionelle Leistungen erbringen zu können (->bestes Paket im c't Sicherheits-Check), andererseits handelt es sich aber um keinen der riesigen Massenhoster, so dass tatsächlich auf individuelle Anforderungen eingegangen wird (und das auch noch schnell und freundlich und nicht etwa mit "dann müssen Sie sich schon einen Root-Server holen").

Links:

• Host Europe
• PriceMinister

Passende Werbung:

How was your day? Mine sucked. I shouldn't be writing this, I should be riding my new bike, enjoying the beautiful weather and springtime scenery before a cold front moves in tomorrow. Unfortunately, a forwarder decided to deliver my bike to someone in Belgium who's probably really nervous right now because I received his much more expensive bike. Other than that, one of my company's German suppliers put the wrong country on a declaration of conformity and 4 out of 6 cheap platform scales we calibrated today needed minor repairs because someone in China doesn't know how to fasten a screw.

Of course, your day may have been worse. One of the problems of complaining on the internet is that there's always someone who makes you look like the luckiest person on earth by comparison (->fmylife.com). There's also Perspective Man. That's why we have to look beyond my petty complaints to see a truly fundamental paradigm shift.

Nothing worked as planned.

My bike should have arrived today. Our German supplier should have put the right country on the declaration of conformity. Factory workers in China should have known that if you don't fasten the screws on the PCB correctly, its impossible to press two buttons at once and calibrate the scale. The truth behind my complaints is that nothing worked as planned.

We're all becoming Brazilians.

Brazil. The country of the future. According to Time magazine and many others, this future has finally arrived now. As the world economy collapses, Brazil rises.

Try telling this to someone who actually runs a company in Brazil. I did, and I had the feeling he wanted to teleport through the phone to punch me in the face real hard. After calming down a bit, he explained that the only reason Brazil wasn't immediately affected by the financial crisis is that the financial sector there isn't as "sophisticated" as elsewhere. This, however, doesn't mean the country is immune to the crisis of the "real" economy.

Still, Brazil may be better equipped to deal with this crisis. People are used to crime levels which would paralyze societies in the so called first world. They also know how to improvise.

They have to, because in Brazil, nothing ever works as planned. The only reason you still make plans there is because otherwise you'd eventually forget what your original goal was while you're solving a cascade of problems you didn't foresee.

Like it or not, that's where we're headed. As insolvencies punch holes in just-in-time supply chains, companies lay off competent employees and desperate governments come up with silly new regulations, we'll have to learn how to improvise. Welcome to Brazil. Sans the good weather, beaches and... I better stop here.

Actually useful pieces of information concerning Brazil:

Are you considering emigrating to Brazil to watch the first world burn while sipping a caipirinha on the porch of your self-sufficient fazenda? Two things you absolutely have to know:

1. An investor visa will currently set you back R$ 50.000.
2. Don't ever criticize Brazil or Brazilians in general (e.g. "the food isn't sophisticated, either"). As my former Brazilian leftist math teacher said, "there's no solidarity in this society". She's right, except when the Seleção is playing or when confronting a foreigner who dared to criticize Brazil.